Goals: The Venus Spectral Rocket Experiment (VeSpR) will investigate the the escape of water from Venus' atmosphere during the flight of a suborbital rocket. The sounding rocket will carry a telescope above most of Earth's atmosphere where it can observe ultraviolet light from Venus that would normally be absorbed by Earth's atmosphere. Total flight time is less than 10 minutes. The telescope can be recovered and reused.

Accomplishments: VeSpR launched successfully from White Sands, N.M. with all systems working well. Analysis of the data to follow.

VeSpR observed Venus for about four minutes and 10 seconds of its 10 minute suborbital flight.

VeSpR was launched via sounding rocket at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The first stage is a Terrier missile, originally built as a surface-to-air missile. The second stage is a Black Brant Mk 1 sounding rocket.

Scientists hope the data will help determine what happened to water on Venus early in its development.